Hamas delegation head to Egypt to discuss Gaza truce as Israeli strikes continue

A senior Hamas official told AFP on Tuesday that a delegation from the Palestinian militant group had departed for Cairo to discuss "new ideas" for achieving a ceasefire with Israel.

"The delegation will meet with Egyptian officials to discuss new ideas aimed at reaching a ceasefire," the official said, following Hamas's rejection of Israel's most recent offer last week.

The announcement came after Gaza's civil defence agency said that a spate of Israeli air strikes since dawn on Tuesday killed at least 25 people across the Hamas-run territory.

Israel resumed an intense air and ground offensive on Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting in the besieged Palestinian territory.

"The total number of Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes since dawn today has risen to 25," Mohammad Mughayyir, a senior official with the civil defence agency told AFP.

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Nine people were killed and several others wounded when an air strike hit a house in the centre of the southern city of Khan Younis, he said.

Six more remained trapped under the rubble, he said.

Another nine were killed in separate strikes on Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Mughayyir said, including five when a tent housing displaced people was hit.

Five others were killed in a strike on a home belonging to the Bakr family in the Al-Shati refugee camp of Gaza City, he said, while two died in a similar attack in the southern city of Rafah.

More than 10 houses were also destroyed in the strikes, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal earlier told AFP, adding that an air strike also destroyed bulldozers and equipment belonging to the Jabalia municipality.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.

Since the ceasefire with Hamas collapsed, the military has carried out an intense assault on Gaza.

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Gaza's civil defence agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out "summary executions" in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

At least 1,864 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,240, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

After 18 months of devastating war and an Israeli blockade on aid since March 2, the UN has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory.

"Gaza has become a land of desperation," Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X.

"Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade."

Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)